Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” essay has always been very powerful to me, mainly because it is a plea for understanding and compensation for a people to a people. It is appealing to every human being with a pulse and a sense of justice and morality. King writes, “[The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was] a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check”. With word like promise, guarantee, obligation, unalienable, King alludes to the fact that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inherent birthrights assured to every human being, and that African Americans are no exception. With these words, King was also supplicating everyone’s sense of fair play by using language that he knew most people would listen to: the talk of money. Another interesting part of the speech that I think is interesting is when King writes, “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitamite discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality…[people] will have a awakening of the nation returns to business as usual….there will be neither rest nor tranquility until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.” Every word here calls attention to a frustrated and suffering mass of people that will revolt if their pleas are ignored. King uses words like fatal, urgency, determination to force listeners to see the importance and necessity of this new Tide of Change, to force listeners to not sweep his pleas beneath the rug and convince themselves that this is a phase in the annals of US history. There is also a thinly veiled threat in these words, made all the more important when King mentions fatal. He also used the word citizenship, to bring home the fact that African Americans are still citizens of this country and equal under the mandates of the law just like any other American citizen. It is interesting to me how King attempts to sway listeners to his argument using elements of paranoia, talk of money, and by petitioning to everyone’s sense of justice, obligation, sympathy and compassion. It is very difficult to argue with those traits, which is why his argument is so effective!
Written Fall 2003. All writing (c) comicfairy. Please do NOT steal...Ask & ye shall receive. :)